Catholic Church
Pope Francis’ long-awaited apostolic exhortation—“Amoris Laetitia,” or “The Joy of Love”—was released earlier this month. The good news is that Pope Francis urges church leaders to be pastors rather than church bureaucrats. The request wasn’t surprising because Pope Francis immediately taking the reigns of the Catholic Church displayed a pastoral countenance to his papacy. Pope…
Read MoreA new Pew Research Center study provides an abysmal assessment of the Catholic Church for those of us who value LGBT inclusion in our faith communities. In a study of 1,197 LGBT adults released on June 13, 2013, 79 percent of those questioned rated Catholicism as “unfriendly” to LGBT people. Only 4 percent view our…
Read MoreWhenever the media uses the phrase “Catholic Church” when they reference statements made by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) or individual church leaders, Marianne Duddy-Burke, Executive Director of DignityUSA, stands up to correct them. “The bishops try discredit Dignity by saying we’re not authorized not to use the word Catholic,” she states.…
Read MoreArriving at World Youth Day has been an exciting experience but also one that is mixed with many other emotions from “OMG” to “eek” to “what are we getting into” to “wow this is really happening!” I then realize that the call to make disciples is not only one of evangelizing others but is also…
Read Moredo better. do better again. try harder. get it together.
Read MoreThe Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world. The fight for the dignity and inclusion of its LGBTQI parishioners is a fight for the church’s soul and moral integrity. DignityUSA since its inception has asserted that God loves the LGBTQI community equally. This year DignityUSA held its 23rd biennial national conference in…
Read MoreLGBT affirming religious voices Last month, Newark, New Jersey’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin welcomed a pilgrimage of LGBT Catholics to the archdiocese’s Cathedral of the Sacred Heart—a gesture that is being hailed as a major step forward in the pastoral care of LGBT people here in the U.S. one participant going so far as calling it…
Read MoreA new survey reveals that a majority of Catholics oppose allowing small business owners in their state to refuse products or services to gay and lesbian people, if doing so violates their religious beliefs. The data from PRRI shows that 63% of Hispanic Catholics and 61% of White Catholics oppose refusals based on religious beliefs. When…
Read MoreIn December, we saw some significant good news out of Massachusetts: the anti-LGBT organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) voluntarily withdrew a lawsuit they filed in October that would have created an unprecedented, extraordinary exemption to Massachusetts’ statewide nondiscrimination law that was updated this past year to include protections for transgender people in public places. The…
Read More